Schedular selecting songs not in specified playlists

[rseifert]

Hi,
New user testing the software. I've run into a perplexing problem. First, scheduler is repeating songs much too often. In some cases every two hours. I've tweaked the various settings and have been able to reduce that occurrence somewhat (title separation set at 50, artist set at 20, with "ruah" selected in script attributes). I'm also using itunes smart playlists, looking for least played songs in various genres. I looked at the play history in DJ to find the exact times songs played and when they were repeated. I then looked at the scheduler log to see what command lines selected the repeats. It turns out that repeated songs are NOT in the playlists specified. Below are a few lines of code from this afternoon..

Line 18     pick Max:57:30 ruah Country Least:Country Tunes
(03:39:20)  Added /Users/richardseifert/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Vince Gill/I Still Believe in You/04 Tryin' to Get Over You.m4a
Line 19     pick Max:57:30 ruah Classic Country Least:Country Tunes
(03:42:49)  Added /Users/richardseifert/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Ray Price/Touch My Heart/Touch My Heart.mp3
Line 20     pick Max:57:30 ruah Country Tunes :Classic Country
(03:45:52)  Added /Users/richardseifert/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Radney Foster/Del Rio, Tx 1959/01 Just Call Me Lonesome.m4a

Line 19 is a song that is NOT in either of those categories. Am I missing something?

Any help is appreciated
Thanks,
Rick

[Lane]

It has to be in there at the time it was chosen. But with a smart playlist, it might be removed after it starts playing in DJ (desired behaviour I would think). Scheduler is choosing songs from those playlists only.

I recommend you check again, but make sure you check after scheduling but before the songs play. If can confirm it scheduled one that isn't in the playlist, that would indeed be perplexing.

[Jay Lichtenauer]

First let me point out that title separation is only going to help you to separate songs that are the exact same title. This was only added recently to help with special situations such as Christmas songs where you want to keep Silent Night from being played again by another artist too soon. Most people will not need this.

The 'u' in ruah is for unique which guards agains repeating tracks that haven't been marked played but are in queue or are currently being scheduled.

I concur with Lane: I don't know how a track can be picked if the track is not in the "Classic Country Least" playlist at the time it actually picked it. It doesn't get marked as played until DJ actually plays it so perhaps it was removed from the playlist after it played. Perhaps it didn't get marked as played the first time for some reason?

Just for general reference, to be removed from a playlist:
1. The output use must have logged checked in the preferences on the Audio I/O pane.
2. 'Register played tracks with iTunes when logging the player output' must be checked, also on that pane.
3. The track must have the exact same artist, title and album in both iTunes and Radiologik DJ as it appears in the queue. If DJ reads any of this incorrectly, it will not be able to tell iTunes it played.
4. The playlist must be a smart playlist that in some way does not show recently played tracks.

If you have a folder that has the same name as this playlist and that folder contains a playlist that contains this track, it may have selected from that.

Lastly, if you are using incompatible versions of DJ and Scheduler, Scheduler will not be aware of what is in queue in order to keep a track from being picked again using u=unqiue if it is in DJ's queue but hasn't played. Changes were made in 2011.12.1 in particular that if you use different versions before and after that of DJ and Scheduler at the same time, you could have troubles like this.

Still trouble: What is the rule of your smart playlist "Classic Country Least"?

[rseifert]

Thanks for the replies. I've let scheduer/DJ run for 9 hours today to see what is happening.

I'm using Scheduler version 2012.3.1, and DJ version 2012.3.2. I have "register played tracks with itunes" checked. However, I don't see "The output use must have logged checked in the preferences on the Audio I/O pane" as an option in the audio I/O pane.

The mystery continues however. Here is a line from the 7pm hour this evening...

Line 26     pick Max:57:30 ruah Country Least:Indie
(07:53:49)  Added /Users/richardseifert/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Marty Robbins/Unknown Album/Devil Woman.mp3

This file is in neither of these playlists. "Country Least" is a very simple smart playlist with the only rule being select the 75 least played files from the "Country Tunes" regular playlist. The file, however, IS in the "Country Tunes" playlist. "Indie" is another regular itunes playlist. 


I looked at the "plays" column in itunes, and it is very low for this file, so I would think it SHOULD be in the "Country Least" smart playlist. The plays value is much below the highest value in this playlist, so I would think the file would remain in the list even after being played. Is this a correct assumption?

The common thread seems to be that Scheduler is picking a file from the playlist that the smart playlist is based on, if that makes any sense.

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here since I'm just learning the software. Thanks for any ideas/suggestions you might have.
Rick

[Jay Lichtenauer]

A file can be in a playlist at the time scheduler picks it but not in the playlist after it plays. So if you look at the playlist after it played, it probably won't be there then because it was recently played by then. Are you looking at this smart playlist after the offending track played or before it played?

I attached a screenshot of the preferences which shows the log (sorry not logged) checkboxes that must be checked for a track to be logged. If you are only using one of these outputs, then you only need to have log checked for that output. Then at the bottom that the logged tracks get marked as played in iTunes which you already acknowledged.

What kind of close proximity are we talking about? How soon is it repeated?

How many tracks in the source playlist "Country Tunes" from which the 75 least recently played are derived?

If it's only 100 then only 25 of the most recently played tracks will be kept out of the smart playlist. My rule of thumb for music is to have a smart playlist show only about 25% of the least recently played.

The plays column in iTunes is not an indicator of how recently something played. It's an indicator of how often. Your smart playlist is selecting by how recent.

Along with answers to the above questions, email me a day's log and tell me a couple examples of tracks that played too soon. Log files for Scheduler are kept in ~/Library/Logs/Radiologik/Scheduler/2012/. Use the "Go to Folder" menu item in the Go menu in the Finder and paste that path text above to get there quickly.

[rseifert]

Problem solved, I think . As I suspected, the solution involved "removing and replacing operator". That would be an embarrassed red faced me 

While creating smart itunes playlists, I erred in an attribute that I thought I had the same in all. In this case, Instead of asking the smartlist to select "least often played", I had entered "least recently played". Big difference I think. So, of course when a file played, it would be removed form the "least recently played" list. When I searched for it after the fact, it wasn't there....duh!

I'm discovering that smartlists are extremely important.

I'm hoping that by defining these lists carefully, I'll be able to eliminate repeating files too often.

Thank you Jay and Lane for your patience and support.
Rick

[Lane]

I'm glad you're sorted out!

The Smart Playlists are really powerful. And where they fall short, the scheduler has extra smarts that make it possible for us to program for almost any need.  I'm still figuring out new ways I can bend and twist the options. Like any powerful set of tools, we can find ourselves missing bits here and there. Don't feel bad about having a setting wrong.

I nest smart playlists a couple of layers deep, where I'll combine both least often and least recently. I'm always experimenting with variations to try and get the right fit.